even more fortunate on this occasion than we had been before, though we
found that it was no longer possible to take our enemies by surprise as
we had done at first; they had learned wisdom from experience and had
become aware of our tactics, notwithstanding which we took four
privateers, one of which we cut out from under a battery, and made
several recaptures, two of which proved to be very valuable. But as
these incidents happened to be mere interludes, as it were, in my story,
having no special significance, I shall leave them without further
mention and pass on. The reader will therefore please understand that I
had been in command of the _Dolphin_ rather more than six months when
the incident occurred to which I am about to refer.

The time was about half an hour, or thereabouts, after midnight, and our
position was about sixty miles south-east of Beata Point, the
southernmost point on the mainland of Saint Domingo. The day had been
fine, with a very nice pleasant working breeze, but as the sun had
declined toward the horizon the wind had shown signs of dropping,
gradually dying away after sunset, until toward the end of the first
watch it had fallen so completely calm that we had furled all our canvas
to save wear and tear, and were, at the time mentioned, lying under bare
poles, slowly drifting with the current to the westward. The night was
pitch-dark, for there was no moon, and with the dying away of the wind a
great bank of heavy thunderous-looking cloud had gradually worked up
from the westward, imperceptibly expanding until it had at length
obscured the entire firmament, promising a thunder-storm which would
doubtless be all the heavier when it broke from the length of time which
it took in the brewing. I had remained on deck until midnight; but
observing, when the middle watch was called, that the barometer had
dropped only the merest trifle, had gone below upon the deck being
relieved, and, leaving orders with young Boyne to call me in the event
of any change in the weather, had flung myself, half undressed, into my
cot, hoping to get a nap before the storm broke, and feeling pretty
confident that when it did nothing very serious could happen, the
schooner being under bare poles.

But somehow I could not get to sleep, probably on account of the
oppressive closeness of the atmosphere, for it was stiflingly hot,
although the skylights and companion were wide open; and there I lay,
tossing restlessly f